Comparison

Touch Notation vs Book Whisperer

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Touch Notation

Create musical scores with intuitive touch gestures. Draw notes, add expressions, and play back your compositions with 30 instrument voices. Export your work in various formats.

Highlights
  • Handwritten notation input
  • 30 built-in instrument voices
  • Tempo and dynamics control
  • Page layout functions
  • Transpose feature
  • Multiple export formats (PDF, SMF, MusicXML)
Read full description

Touch Notation is a powerful musical score creation app that allows anyone to enjoy writing music using touch gestures. In Japan, Touch Notation was selected as one of the ‘App Store Best of 2014’ apps, and held the No.1 spot in the iPad Paid App index for music apps for over two weeks. Up until now, musical score creation software has relied upon dragging individual notes from a palette onto staves. By contrast, Touch Notation allows musicians to draw directly onto the score using a finger or touch pen, and have their work immediately appear as beautifully written notation, then played back using the app’s 30 built-in instrument voices. - A wide-range of functions accessible from a cleanly designed, intuitive user interface. - Ability to enter musical expressions for adjusting tempo and dynamics. - Layout functions such as page breaks. - Convenient transpose feature for raising/lowering the pitch of the entire score. - Output scores using Air Print, or save to Dropbox in PDF, SMF, MusicXML, and ScoreMaker formats. Touch Notation allows the following musical symbols to be entered by hand: - Note, Rest (including dotted and double-dotted), Long Rest, Beam, Tuplet (Triplet) - Grace Note - Accidental, Tie, Slur - Accent, Staccato, Tenuto, Fermata - Trill, sfz, Arpeggio, Pedal, Senza - Metronome symbol - Crescendo, Decrescendo - Dynamics symbols (ppp~fff) - Octave symbol - Repeat brackets - Repeat marks (D.C./Fine/D.S./Segno/Coda/to Coda) - Clefs (Treble Clef/Bass Clef/C Clef/Percussion Clef) - Key signature - Time signature - Bar lines (repeat marks) - Abbreviation Lyrics and other musical expressions (‘Dolce’, ‘Tranquillo’, etc.) can be added using text input, while comments and memos can also be written freehand directly onto the score. * Drum notation is supported, but other types such as rhythm notation and tab notation are not supported. * Older devices may experience stuttering when playing complicated scores with many simultaneous notes.

About

Book Whisperer

Features
Read full description

Audio player for audiobooks, lectures and other long audio Straightforward - single screen with many cool ways to rewind and seek Simple bookmarks No account, no subscriptions, no cloud, no AI features Quick use and simple design. Great for reading before sleep or during jogging. Great for playing very long tapes... I mean audio files. 3h lecture, 20h long audiobook - no problem, you can still navigate easily. As minimalistic as you like. Most audio-players use very small fonts with fancy shadows and gradients, so I need to wear my glasses (e.g.: to read current time). Come on, not having to use glasses while reading in bed is the main advantage of audiobooks

Screenshots

Touch Notation4 screens
Book Whisperer4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: Book Whisperer at Free against Touch Notation's $9.99. Book Whisperer also leads on in-app purchases (none vs 10) and update cadence (weekly vs every 3 months). Touch Notation's advantage is iOS requirement (11.0 vs 15.6). On ads and device support there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Book Whisperer is free to download; Touch Notation costs $9.99 up front. Touch Notation sells 10 one-off in-app purchases. Book Whisperer asks for nothing beyond the download.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Touch Notation ships an update every 3 months, Book Whisperer weekly. The most recent releases landed on October 26, 2026 and October 17, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard4 real differences · 6 level
Touch Notation versus Book Whisperer: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterTouch NotationBook Whisperer
Price$9.99Free — better
Rating2.9 (21 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews44.4% of reviews—
Number of ratings21 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 3 monthsWeekly — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationPaid—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS11.0 — better15.6
Further details — not scored
Size112 MB3 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperKawai Musical Instruments Manufacturing Co., Ltd.Konrad Leszczyski

In-app purchases

10 purchases

Touch Notation

One-time10
  • Sound Set: Piano$0.49
  • Sound Set: Guitar/Bass 1$0.49
  • Sound Set: Strings$0.49
Show 7 more
  • Sound Set: Brass/Woodwind$0.49
  • Sound Set: Bell/Mallet$0.49
  • Sound Set: Vocal/Others$0.49
  • Core MIDI Output$1.99
  • Handwritten Font$1.99
  • Sound Set: Full$2.99
  • Chord Name & Automatic Accompaniment$3.99
None

Book Whisperer

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Touch Notation free?
Touch Notation costs $9.99, and also offers in-app purchases.
Is Book Whisperer free?
Book Whisperer is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Touch Notation or Book Whisperer have ads?
Neither Touch Notation nor Book Whisperer shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Touch Notation or Book Whisperer?
Touch Notation ships an update every 3 months, and Book Whisperer weekly. Most recently, Touch Notation was updated on October 26, 2026 and Book Whisperer on October 17, 2026.

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